Elizabeth Bear - The White City

Moscow

Kitai Gorod

May 1903

Lady Abigail Irene Garrett gazed up at the rose-colored walls of the Cathedral of the Theophanes and frowned as if its elaborate white gingerbread trim were a personal affront. The creature who observed her held his silence, watching her profile as she craned back her neck. Her cropped hair broke in strands of blond and ash around her collar.

A summery wind blew her open coat wide and unraveled the scarf from her neck so it fluttered behind her like a creamy banner. The reflected stain of sunset across the western sky, the last light of the sun, dyed the silk a shade that might have seemedto merely mortal eyesnot too dissimilar from the walls of the monastery.

But the creature who watched her was better adapted to noticing subtle color differences by halflight than any living man, and he could pick out layered peaches and vermilions in the sunset that no pigment slapped on a wall could imitate. Oils, in the hands of a masterChinese red, Alizarin crimson, cadmium yellowmight come close.

If this is the Chinese City, Abby Irene said dourly, you might expect a few Chinese persons.

Forgive me, said the creature, who still sometimes called himself Don Sebastien de Ulloa, though that was only one of the dozens of names hed worn across the centuries. Shall I endeavor to have a few imported, or will you content yourself with assurances of postponement? I feel certain an excursion by dirigible to far Cathay should
remedy the egregious lack of Chinamen

Abby Irene turned her long neck and her shoulders toward him, the corner of her mouth quirking upwards. The gesture made the scandalously unbuttoned collar of her shirtwaist gap, revealing the sorcerers tattoo tracing a scarlet column of alchemical symbols from her collarbone to vanish between her breasts. The names of quicksilver, white phosphorous, and red arsenic were written over her heart, and the creatureSebastienknew it for the outward mark of a vow.

He wanted to chase the marks down to the human, living warmth of her belly and drown his senses in the scent of her blood. Whether she read the desire in his face or not, she smiled. Ill settle for Chinese tea, for the time being. Its cold.

It was a calm night in early summer, but Abby Irene had grown accustomed to the swelter of the new world, and she was no longer a young woman. She felt chills deeply that she would have shrugged off when she lived in London.

Tea, I think we can find you. Sebastien smiled with closed lips and offered his arm most gallantly.

She took it, tugging her coat closed with the other small hand. Lead me, my prince.

I was never a prince.

Her boot nails didnt click on the packed dirt, but that was no reflection on the precision of her stride. She kept up easily; thirty years of detecting made a woman strong, and Abby Irene had never needed to lean on Sebastiens arm. Some day she would; some day hed bury her, unless she left him first. But now she squeezed his arm with fingers that couldnt dent the dry flesh beneath his shirt and asked, What were you?

He ducked his head. I was prenticed a stonemason.

He hadnt thought the trade of his youth so shocking, but Abby Irene stumbled and let go of his arm to recover her balance, skirts swirling about her ankles. She wobbled a little, but stayed up, and Sebastien kept his hands carefully at his sides.

Apprenticed, she said.

He nodded. I think. It was a long time gone, Abby Irene. Memory never grows less fallible. Even for the blood. Especially for the blood. And that, mi corazon, is a kindness.

She had her head cocked aside, that Crown Investigator gleam in her eyes. The scent of her arousal stung him. You were young.

Eighteen, he said. Nineteen. I dont remember exactly. He scrubbed his hands across his facea gesture for her, a memory of human movement rather than something he felt the need for on his own behalf. There was a year or two to run on my contract.

She frowned so that he knew all the questions she was not askinghow did you meet her? Why did you choose to die? Did she even give you a choice?

What was your name?

He blessed her, that she did not choose to ask them. Instead, she took his arm again and once more fell into step, permitting him to lead her to her requested tea.

The shop he had in mind had been a revolutionary caf when he was here last, but times had changed and he imagined so had its clientele. And if not, wellit wasnt as if Abby Irene had never met an anarchist before. Moscow was Europes most populous city, eight hundred years grown from its humble beginnings, a jewel on the Moskva with its ancient rings of walls, its avenues and cathedrals, its theatres and ballets. Sebastien knew he should have found its earthen streets and horse-drawn streetcars incongruous, but to him they only seemed homey. Comforting: evidence that this city was a city as cities should be.

This is still not tea, she reminded, as he paused to let a horsecart pass.

He covered her hand with his own. Follow me. I know just the place.

Because he took them down a side street to avoid a laborers protest by the university, it was all of twenty minutes before she sat across from him at a linen-covered table, her slim hands cupping a tall glass in a silver holder. The name of the caf had not changedit was still called Kobaltbut the clientele he remembered, of painters and poets and young Jack Priests revolutionary friends talking anarchy over scarred tablesthat was gone, replaced by this shabby, gaslit elegance.

And this too shall pass.

Abby Irene leaned forward as if inviting the curls of heat rising from the samovar on her left side to coil through her disarrayed hair. She swirled her tea in the glass and smiled at him. Thank you. This is lovely.

And restorative, I hope.

The aroma of tea was pleasant to Sebastien, though he couldnt have said how it might have seemed to a mortal man. He had come to his current state of undeath long before encountering his first infusion of Camellia sinensis. But he could also detect the smells of her bread and butter, and of the tablespoon of strawberry jam she had stirred into the hot drink, and those nauseated and cloyed.

Human food. So complicated. He drew himself back from his introspection to find Abby Irene gazing at him speculatively.

She pressed a fingertip to the polished silver handle and let the weight of her hand turn the glass. It left no mark on the tablecloth.

Softly, unsettled, Abby Irene said, Theres nowhere in this city I could take you where you have not already been.

Youve never been in Moscow before, Sebastien said, reasonably, wishing she would eat her bread a little fasteror perhaps send it away. But no, shed need her strength. Better if she dined. And I have, many times. That wouldnt be any different if I were a human thing.

But a human thing wouldnt have seen it built stone by stone.

To speak with absolute literal precision, neither had he, but he was willing to allow the metaphorfor its beauty if nothing else. He was glad they had not gone to London. She would have hated having him there, knowing her own native brick and cobble with an intimacy her own life was too short to encompass.

She frowned down at her glass. When her fingers rippled restlessly, a flat silver and garnet band caught the light. Another wampyr would know it for a mark of her allegiance to Sebastien, but seeing it now annoyed him. If you lived long enough, every place was equally an exile. But after even a few years in the New World, coming back to the oldwith its traditions and elaborations, its codes of conduct and its strictures and its rulesit chafed more than Sebastien had expected.

He was old enough to ignore most of the social niceties. But he wouldnt take risks with the safety of his court. In Europe, Abby Ireneand their friend, Mrs. Phoebe Smithmust go tagged as his property like city dogs.